Prostate cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the U.S. In 2005, 185,895 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in the United States, and 28,905 men died of the cancer. The incidence of prostate cancer in the United States significantly decreased in the early 1990s but has remained level since 1995.
Current treatment options include localized therapy, such as surgery and/or radiotherapy for early diagnosed patients. Unfortunately, more than 30% of patients will eventually develop metastatic disease. Treatment for metastatic forms of prostate cancer typically involves hormone level manipulation procedures and/or radiotherapy, but rarely results in improving odds of long-term survival. The use of “classic” anti-proliferative agents such as Docetaxel® for the chemotherapy of androgen-independent stages of prostate cancer results only in marginal improvement of life expectancy. There are several promising new compounds aimed at chemotherapy of hormone-refractory prostate cancer, such as Abiraterone®. However, it is too early to tell whether Abiraterone® chemotherapy will have long term survival benefits. As a result, there is a strong need for new compound classes that can be used for hormone-refractory prostate cancer chemotherapy.
There are several patents describing the use of substituted benzimidazoles for cancer chemotherapy. However, none of these patents are directly related to the use of 6-trifluoromethoxybenzimidazole derivatives for the treatment of cancer, specifically chemotherapy of prostate cancer.